Nation’s job plan lacks specifics

Fred Nation released his jobs plan for the city on October 20, and I was struck by how much it reminded me of another Democratic mayoral challenger this fall:  Melina Kennedy.  Many of you may not know her very well, but I'm from the Indianapolis area and a lot of the more interesting local political discussion has focused on the race between Kennedy and Ballard, Republican incumbent.  

Both Kennedy and Nation have a "vision" for their mayoral campaigns.  They have ideas about what they think should be changed, and then more vague ways of accomplishing this.  I would vote for a candidate with a strong vision, regardless of party.  But a proper, strong vision holds high requirements.  A vision should be bold and forward-thinking.  It should look to some day 20 to 50 years in the future and say, "This is what our city should look like," and then make multiple, smaller goals to achieve that vision.  

A vision cannot be, "Our city needs more jobs, and this will magically solve all our ills" and then list some vague ways of achieving that goal.  Without a bold vision, specifics are important to achieving the number one goal.  The vision approach should be done boldly or not at all.

Because here's the problem:  we're in the middle of economic hardships.  We are either in a double dip recession or about to be.  We need more than vague leadership:  we need specific solutions to address the problems now.  And that's not to say that speed is the most important factor in making decisions.  These decisions about the future of our city must be carefully made so that our future will be brighter than today.

I'll confess that I'm not from Terre Haute and therefore do not know the issues of this city as well as someone who has lived here all their life.  To evaluate Nation's jobs plan, I naturally went to the opposing plan to see what similarities and what differences existed between the two.  

There's really not a whole lot of difference between the two plans in respect to big picture ideas.  Both are focused on job growth, on working with regional, local and educational partners to increase the employment environment of the city.  What Nation's plan lacked was specific, tangible methods for achieving these goals.  

Where his plan did contain specifics, I was often left with questions.  He said that the top priority of every single member of his administration would be job creation.  That sounds special, but isn't the whole point of having a variety of people and departments is that it allows specialization, so that they can get things done in a variety of areas more efficiently?  If they're all doing the same thing, perhaps you don't need very many of them.

Nation also mentioned that our higher education institutions might know a graduate who owned a business who was looking to expand.  Is he suggesting that our universities spend time locating those who have graduated years ago and asking them to move their businesses to Terre Haute?  While job creation is no doubt important, I'm not really sure this should be the focus of our university.  We pay a lot in tuition already, and the primary focus of a university is to educate students.  Businesses create jobs and working with universities to find skilled employees is great, but bringing businesses run by graduates to Terre Haute should not be a focus of our university.  

Nation also mentions technology advancements and Wi-Fi. I fail to see how a city government is going to make Wi-Fi more accessible.  Does he plan to build a city-wide Wi-Fi network?  Restaurants all over the city offer free Wi-Fi to customers.  I'm really not sure how that could be expanded by city government.  And unsurprisingly, Nation's plan offers little insight on specifics.